Our website uses cookies to improve your user experience. If you continue browsing, we assume that you consent to our use of cookies. More information can be found in our Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy.

Get past the rulesto the real product for stakeholder

The timetable for stakeholder is under extreme pressure and it looks as if IFAs may have to take the strain.

The industry is about to get a very sharp reminder that stakeholder remains a concept, not a product.

Warnings about the need to save for retirement are fine but when it comes to getting a customer to sign on the dotted line, IFAs need a product to sell.

Providers and IFAs find themselves caught in a Catch 22 situation which only the regulator can resolve. The PIA wants life offices to show it their Opra-registered corporate stakeholder schemes prior to authorisation but life offices say there is no point in submitting applications until they know what stakeholder will look like.

Life offices say they have an amber light for stakeholder when the looming deadlines suggest they should be on green.

The grand April 2001 launch date may not be under threat yet but the key October deadline for authorisation could fall by the wayside.

The upshot is that IFAs will have less time to cram in the vital groundwork so stakeholder can launch next spring.

Ministers have shown that when they accept there is a problem they can sort it out. This month&#39s announcement of a pension credit is good news which should lift the threat of being punished for saving.

But it is time senior people in the Government and the regulator got together to thrash out the final regulatory details. If the “powers that be” can get their act together, providers and IFAs can help get stakeholder off to the flying start pensions minister Jeff Rooker dreams of.

Recommended

Uncertainties surrounding RU64 continue to be a thorn in the side of pension planners.Life offices are calling for the PIA to clarify RU64 before the introduction of stakeholder to try to bring the pension planning blight to an end.ABI figures for the second quarter of the year reveal regular-premium pension sales have dropped by 25 […]

The cheapest way of handling stakeholder communication for IFAs is to do nothing. For many, this is probably the best planning at the moment.Stakeholder should be viewed as two separate and dis-tinct products – an employee benefit arrangement distributed via the employer and a personal financial product for the individual. If your main business is […]

The Government needs to take action now to boost industry support for individual pension accounts if they are to have any impact, according to the industryPublic demand for IPAs will also need to be encouraged by life offices and unit trust managers with major promotion.IFA Torquil Clark pensions development manager Tom McPhail says he cannot […]

For once, changes to the Finance Bill may actually achieve what they are meant to. The bill introduces a number of changes to pension fund withdrawal rules from October 1.These changes are designed to ease administration and offer greater flexibilityto scheme members altho-ugh the system implications may prevent many product providers from taking immediate advantage.The […]

Following a cabinet reshuffle in light of last week’s general election, David Cameron has announced that Ros Altmann will be replacing Steve Webb as pensions minister. As the industry works with one of the largest reforms to the sector in almost a century, the former adviser to Tony Blair has been tasked with ensuring that the pensions revolution does not stray off track.

Newsletter

Latest from Money Marketing

You have to do hard things to be successful in life. The things no one else does. Why? Life coaches will tell you those are the things that define you; the things that make the difference between existing and living. This may well be true but if that does not float your boat, then American […]

Only a quarter of women are shopping around for their retirement income, according to national IFA LEBC. Customers of LEBC pension advice business The Retirement Adviser are far more likely to use its whole of market service to find the best retirement income solution if they are male. LEBC says the proportion of women using […]

A weekly account of the curious goings-on in the world of financial services A game of Brexit MonopolyLast week, in a foreign policy speech, Theresa May said Brexit negotiations were in their “endgame”. WSJ thinks this is highly unlikely, having heard that not even a quarter of European law has been rolled over yet. Wingate […]

19th November 20182:58 pm

Comments

Leave a comment

Why register with Money Marketing ?

Providing trusted insight for professional advisers. Since 1985 Money Marketing has helped promote and analyse the financial adviser community in the UK and continues to be the trusted industry brand for independent insight and advice.